


Vibranium Heart

by lirin



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Birthday Presents, Gen, Laboratories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-24 22:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: Across six birthdays, Shuri learns many things: how to work with vibranium, what sort of laboratory she likes best, and that her father loves her very much.





	Vibranium Heart

When Shuri turned four, Baba gave her vibranium for her birthday gift. All the birthdays before that, she was too young to remember or to fully know what was going on; but this one, she remembers.

Even at that age, Shuri was already very familiar with vibranium. It was all around them: in their ships and hoverbikes, their towering buildings, and even their clothes. But she had never seen vibranium in as many forms as she was now faced with. One looked like a rock, fresh from the mine and dirty. Another was round and smooth as a marble, and caught the light beautifully. Another had been woven into a piece of cloth; it slipped between her hands like silk, but even quieter.

"You're getting to be a big girl now, my precious princess," Baba said. "It's time for you to learn about what makes Wakanda special."

"I know what makes Wakanda special, Baba!" Shuri exclaimed. "Vibranium!" She was very proud of herself that she could pronounce such a big word. "The big meteorite fell from the sky and the Black Panther united the tribes and hid our land so that we could live here, secret, with the vibranium!"

"That's quite right, my sweet," Baba said. "Do you know anything else about vibranium?"

Shuri shook her head.

Baba smiled. "Then it's time you learned more about it." He picked her up and had her stand on the chair next to him at the table. Zuri stepped forward when Papa beckoned to him, and set a large basin of water on the table. With his eyes on Shuri's, Baba took off the Kente scarf he was wearing and placed it in the basin so that it ran across the middle, almost like a wall through the water. Shuri blinked. Why did Baba want to get his scarf wet? It wasn't made out of vibranium.

"Vibranium absorbs all vibrations," Baba said. "Do you know what vibrations are?"

Shuri peered at the bowl. Nothing seemed to be happening, except that Baba's scarf was getting a little bit wetter. "It's what happens when you shake something."

"That's one way vibrations are formed, but there are lots of ways things can vibrate. Whenever something is touched by an outside force and caused to move back and forth—whether that thing is air, water, or something more sturdy like this chair—" He struck the chair hard enough to make a noise. "All of those cause vibrations. When I'm talking to you right now, my mouth and throat are causing the air to vibrate."

"It doesn't look like it's vibrating, Baba."

"That's because air is difficult to see. But water, you can see that, can't you? Here, look." Shuri looked at the basin. Nothing was happening. The water wasn't moving at all. "Now, reach in on this side of the scarf, and wiggle your hand back and forth in the water." Shuri obliged, splashing the water back and forth so that it made big waves. "See how the water in the entire basin is vibrating?" Baba said. "Even the water that's separated from your hand by the scarf."

Shuri nodded. "That's what water does."

"Yes, but not all the time," Baba said. He took his scarf out of the basin and wrung it out. Then he picked up the silky piece of fabric that was part of Shuri's birthday present and draped it across the basin the same way. "This fabric has vibranium in it," he said. "Wait a moment for the water to settle after I disturbed it." He placed his hand on her shoulder, and they both waited patiently until there was not a single ripple in the water. "Now, wiggle your hand in the water the same as before," Baba said. 

Shuri splashed at the water again, but this time only half of the basin had big waves. On the other side of the fabric, the water scarcely wiggled. "The water's not moving as much," she said.

"And that's because of the vibranium," Baba told her. "All the splashing of the water, the waves and ripples it makes, is vibration. And the vibranium blocks it. Isn't that interesting?"

Shuri nodded. "Uh-huh!"

"Do you want to learn more about vibranium?"

Shuri nodded again.

"That's good," Baba said. "I've arranged for a tutor from the Mining Tribe to teach you more about it. You're old enough to have proper lessons now, and I think you'll enjoy them very much. N'bora will teach you about letters and numbers, too, but most of all he will teach you about vibranium. For if vibranium is the heart of the nation, then it should be the heart of its princess as well."

"I want a vibranium heart, Baba!" Shuri said. Baba always wanted good things for her, so if that was what he wanted for her, then that was what Shuri wanted—even if she didn't really understand half of what Baba had just said.

***

When Shuri turned six, Baba made arrangements for another tutor, for she had quite outgrown poor N'bora. The hapless man had done his best to answer her constant questions, but there were too many to which he did not know the answers; and Shuri had little patience for prevarication.

When N'bora finally stormed into Baba's office high in the palace and announced that he was quitting, Shuri thought at first that Baba would be angry with her for driving him off. (Maybe telling him that he must be an idiot if he didn't know  _why_  the square root of -1 was  _i_  had been a little rude.) Then she worried that Baba would be angry with N'bora, for abandoning her without a tutor so abruptly. But Baba was angry with no one. "These things happen," he said. "You have learned a great deal from N'bora these last years, but I think you're ready for a different teacher."

So on her birthday, he took Shuri to the great mine, where all the vibranium was brought out from the heart of the earth. Baba held Shuri's hand and let her around the wide mouth of the mine, to a building that overlooked it all. Shuri hung behind Baba as the elevator carried them up to a large room that was very crowded, with people and workbenches and papers and models and pieces of vibranium. None of the vibranium looked like it was straight from the mine, though. All of it had been processed and was being made into useful things, but what sort of useful things, Shuri wasn't sure. 

At the back of the room, there was an immense glass wall, which Baba led her towards. "Don't worry," he said, as they looked out through the glass at the mine beyond. "The glass is very very strong and will not break. Do you see down below us? This is where almost all of the vibranium that we mine in Wakanda comes from." Shuri already knew that, but she politely didn't say so. The mine was so big! It would be easy to get lost in there.

"My king," a woman said from behind them.

Baba turned and greeted the woman, and Shuri could tell from his tone that he was glad to see her. Shuri bowed as she was expected to, then stood behind Baba, wondering what would happen next.

"Shuri, do you remember Folami?" Baba said, introducing the woman. "She is the head of the mine and of our research division."

Folami did look familiar. Shuri thought she might have seen her sometimes at council meetings, but never here, in the heart of Folami's domain. "Hi," Shuri said shyly.

"Folami is going to be your new teacher," Baba said. "Each day, as mining is drawing to a close for the day and Folami has some time to spare, she will give you an hour of lessons about vibranium and engineering. You will have other teachers, too, separate ones for math and science and history. But Folami's lessons are the only ones that will be held outside the palace. I will arrange for one of the Dora Milaje to bring you here each day."

Folami bowed. "It will be an honor to teach you, my princess. I thought today we'd start with a tour of the mine. You can even mine a bit of vibranium yourself, if you like. We usually use machines to draw the vibranium from the earth, but it can be done by hand when we wish."

Shuri smiled. She thought she would like this teacher very much.

***

When Shuri turned ten, Baba gave her a laboratory. It wasn't very big, just a room in the palace that had been a pantry but that nobody had any use for anymore. But Baba had had a workbench and cabinets built, and he gave Shuri permission to request whatever vibranium she needed for her experiments (as long as it wasn't very much) from Folami at the mine.

Folami and the other tutors were keeping Shuri very busy with lessons, and most of Shuri's time in the laboratory she used to work on assignments that one or the other of them had given her. But sometimes in the evenings, when all of her schoolwork was done, she made things for herself. She had learned more about the different forms that vibranium could be induced to take, from thick blocks of the metal to the tiniest threads that could be woven into fabric. Patiently she collected different vibranium samples and kept them on her workbench. And whenever she had the free time, she would sit at the workbench and quietly hold one of the pieces. Turning it over and over and over in her hands, she waited for it to speak to her and tell her what it wanted to be.

The pieces didn't actually talk, of course. But Shuri thought it was rather like the legend Mama had told her long ago:  _Once, there was an artist who decided to make a sculpture of a rhino. So he found a great big block of vibranium that was bigger than he was, and then he chipped away all the parts of the block that didn't belong in a rhino._  

The hard part, of course, was knowing which parts didn't belong; and that was why only true artists were capable of making sculptures. Shuri hoped that if she just studied her pieces of vibranium long enough, she could be the artist that they needed, and make them into something very special.

***

When Shuri turned fourteen, Baba gave her a much bigger laboratory.

Her beloved teacher Folami was retiring as head of the mine. Shuri asked Baba what would become of Folami's beautiful lab, the one that overlooked the mine. She was only curious; she certainly didn't expect Baba to give it to her, for she was still only a child. But Baba said that Folami had spoken highly to him of Shuri's skill with and love for vibranium, and Baba thought she deserved it.

"Years ago," Baba said, "you told me you wanted a heart for vibranium. I believe you are developing such a heart, and such devotion to the good of Wakanda deserves reward. And the next head of the mine has his own laboratory elsewhere, and will not want this one. It's yours."

Shuri threw her arms around Baba's neck. "Thank you!" she squealed. "Can I do anything I want with it?"

"What do you have in mind?"

Shuri's head was overflowing with plans, but she didn't think that throwing them all at Baba at once would be a good way to get him to agree to anything. She picked the one that was most important. "I'd like to take out some of the benches and redo the walls, make the building feel bigger and airier," she said. "I've only ever worked in a small cramped lab, but big ideas need big spaces."

"I don't see why not," Baba said. "You're a big girl now; you arrange the workers yourself, and have them send the bills to me."

 

Shuri plunged into her renovations with glee. She only hesitated when Folami visited, on the second day of demolition. Her aging tutor looked around the vast empty laboratory with sad eyes full of memories, and for a moment Shuri thought that she should have left the laboratory the same as it had always been, without changing a thing.

"It's going to be beautiful," Folami said finally, although her voice was tentative and weary. "It will be very different than the laboratory I knew, yet beautiful."

"Do you think so?" Shuri replied. "I know it's not what you might have preferred."

"As generation builds upon generation, change comes after change," Folami said. "That is the way of the world, and as much as Wakanda may close itself off from the world, it is still also the way of Wakanda." She put her arm around Shuri's shoulders and walked with her to the big glass wall that overlooked the mine: the one feature of the laboratory that Shuri had retained without hesitation. The two of them gazed down at the beautiful cavernous mine below them; then Folami turned around to face the gutted laboratory again. Shuri turned with her. The laboratory looked even worse by comparison with the well-crafted mine below them. "Creativity is specific to the individual," Folami said. "I made this room into a place that would let me create wonderful things. But now it is yours, and you need to make it into the sort of place that is right for you. Because if I'm not very much mistaken, someday soon you will create things that are even more wonderful than I can imagine."

Shuri wanted to hug her, but she thought that might seem too childish. Instead, she gave Folami her best formal bow. "Thank you," she said. "I'll do my best to make you proud."

"I'm sure you will," Folami said. "Farewell, my princess." She strode rapidly across the bare floor, sidestepping sawhorses and drop cloths.

Shuri watched her go. Then long after Folami had left the room, she stared at the laboratory.  _Her_ laboratory. She had so many plans to make this room into a place that was right for her, just as Folami had encouraged her to do. The construction workers with their sledgehammers had already opened the room up so much, and there was more to come. Shuri thought she would work best in a lab that was big and airy and full of room for ideas. And by the time she finished, this space was going to big enough to fit all the ideas a girl could ever want.

***

When Shuri turned sixteen, Baba took her on a tour of Wakanda. "The princess must know her country as she knows the back of her hand," he said as they sat down in their ship. It was a light patrol craft, just the right size for the two of them.

Shuri had clasped her hands in her lap, but now she flipped them over and looked at them. "I'm actually not that familiar with my hands," she said. "Usually the only times they're in my line of sight, it's because I'm using them to work on something that's too important to waste my time looking at anything else."

"It's not a particularly apt simile," Baba agreed. "What's something you know better than your hands? Your laboratory, I suppose. You should know Wakanda as you know every tool, every creation, and every inch of that building by the mine that you haunt so devotedly."

Shuri grinned. "Hey, I don't haunt it  _all_  the time. At least I remember to come to the palace for meals."

"Most of the time," Baba said.

"More than T'Challa!"

Baba chuckled. "That's not saying much. Your brother is even more devoted to his pursuits than you are—though your pursuits are aimed in quite different directions." He raised his arms, propelling their ship forward.

He did not speak for several minutes, concentrating on steering. But the ship was fast, and before long they had reached the edge of the capital, slipping through the cloaking barrier and out towards the farthest reaches of the country. "I took your brother on this same journey when he turned sixteen," Baba said. "Although sixteen is not old enough to be accounted an adult in all measures, it is old enough to to take upon yourself many of the duties that are required of a Wakandan prince or princess. And how can you do that if you do not know Wakanda inside and out?"

A few more minutes' flight took them almost to the border. Baba set the ship down outside one of the Border Tribe's guard post villages. "Tell me, do you know how far we would have to drill from where we are now to reach vibranium?"

Shuri shook her head. "I know I've seen the answer on a map back in the palace, but I can't remember whether it was one or two hundred meters."

"One hundred," Baba said. "But it is very unlikely that we would ever mine this close to the border. We can obtain more than enough vibranium for our needs from the mine at the capital, where we are much more hidden from outside eyes than we are here."

He climbed out of the ship, and Shuri followed him. "Where are we going, Baba?"

"We're going to walk from here," Baba said. "Okoye is meeting us here with supplies for hiking and camping, and then she'll take the ship back to the capital for us."

Camping wasn't exactly how Shuri had pictured spending her birthday, but it would be fun to have time alone with Baba. She didn't think she'd spent more than three hours just her and him since she'd been a small child. And besides, there was no country more beautiful than Wakanda, and she'd spent too much time lately in her laboratory, staring at nothing but white walls and pieces of vibranium.

"Are we going to walk all the way back to the capital?" she asked.

"If you feel up to it," Baba said. "When I did this with your brother, we walked all the way back, but then your pursuits are somewhat more sedentary and I don't know whether you would be comfortable walking that far."

"Being a princess isn't about being comfortable, Baba," Shuri said. "And I think you're right: it's important for me to travel our land and see it up close."

Baba smiled, pleased. Shuri didn't mention that the importance of the activity was only her secondary motivation. The first was, of course, that T'Challa would never let her hear the end of it if she didn't walk all the way back.

***

When Shuri turned seventeen, she designed herself a brand new laboratory. This time, she had control not only over the inside of the building, but the entire structure as well.

When she'd been a child, she would have thought having such authority was the most exciting thing ever. Yet now that the time had come, all she could think was that she would rather have her old laboratory, the one that had been Folami's, and that Baba had given to her. One last gift to remember him by. But it was gone, too damaged by her own high-tech weaponry to be preserved.

Much like her nation. Both Wakanda and the laboratory had taken damage from unpredicted sources, and it was going to take a long time to pick up the pieces again. Shuri looked out over the plain. From here, she could see both the wreckage of her old laboratory and the site for the new one. They were locating it twenty meters away; close enough for easy access to the mine, but far enough that it was not connected to the mine complex, and construction could begin before demolition was complete on the old entry to the mine.

T'Challa had told Shuri that she could have as large a space for the laboratory as she wished, and complete control over the design, but it just wasn't the same without Baba here. With the rose-tinted glasses of memory, for a moment she even missed her cramped pantry laboratory that Baba had first given her.

Baba would never see this new laboratory. That was the way of the world, that people never stayed in the world forever no matter how much they were loved. Generation came after generation, and change after change. But Wakanda was strong, and so were its people. Shuri sat down on the grass and put her hand on the earth. Deep below her, she knew there was metal that did not shake or vibrate, no matter what forces were marshaled against it. And deep inside her, it was much the same. Wakanda's strength was her own. That wasn't what Baba had meant when he'd told her, all those years ago, that she should have a heart for vibranium; but she thought he would have been pleased nonetheless.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [This blog post](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/22/chip-away/) tells some of the history of the legend of the sculptor.
> 
> Almost all of the languages in [this list](http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/09/words-for-father-mother-in-various.html) that use "Baba" for the father use "Mama" for the mother, so I thought it was a pretty safe decision to go with "Mama" even though I don't recall it being used in canon.
> 
> Coming up with names for the two OC tutors was a bit of a challenge, since Wakanda is not clearly patterned after any particular country (or language). Most of the male BP characters have names that follow a consistent consonant/vowel pattern and that are not listed on Behind the Name (the one exception to both of these things is Zuri, which BtN lists as a feminine Swahili name), so I decided to just make up a name that fit the pattern. The female BP characters do not have such a pattern, but Ayo is the only one of them that has a BtN entry that lists it as both feminine and African. So I chose that name to pattern myself after, going through the other names in the same language (Yoruba) until I found one I liked.
> 
> Coming from Scarlet Pimpernel fandom as I do, I must admit that there were a few times where I almost accidentally typed "Bibi" instead of "Baba", as that's what one of the SP characters calls her father.


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